As Boat Sales Soar, Private Docks Become Precious Real Estate

She wanted a home in the area that she could share with her 80-year-old father, Jim, and with the entire family for vacations and weekends.

She also wanted to expand the family fleet, which at the time was a single 11-foot craft, powered by motor and oars, that her father built in the early 1960s. It couldn’t hold the whole clan safely. So when she and her father saw a used 16-foot cat boat at Arey’s Pond Boat Yard in nearby Orleans, he snapped it up.

Joanne found her new home at the boat yard, too. One day, while checking out the boat inventory, she spotted a house on the opposite shore. It had everything a Cape Cod house should: weathered shingles, blue shutters and water views—and it was on a hill, high enough to protect it from storms.

The house was an impressive 4,983 square feet, with five bedrooms, 5½ baths and about 200 feet of frontage on the pond. Just below it was a boathouse perched in a thicket of bright green marsh grass. Perhaps best of all, the property had a 100-foot dock.

Urged on by her father, the two took a tour of the house with a broker. They found inside a quality home that had just undergone a high-end upgrade. It was move-in ready and big enough for the family. The boathouse, they figured, would make a great office, for Ms. Falla, who also has a place in Boston.

But at $4.4 million, she dismissed it as out of her budget. Until, that is, the price came down just as she was benefitting from her company, the San Mateo, Calif.-based Snowflake, going public.

“I put in an offer of $3.5 million and a few hours later the broker called to say it had been accepted,” said Ms. Falla. She closed on the home in February and her father moved in the next day.

Today, the amenity Ms. Falla is most excited about at the new home is the dock, which can accommodate two or three boats. She isn’t alone in her passion.

Houses with private boat docks, bulkheads, sea walls and lifts are in high demand as Americans buy pleasure craft in record numbers in an effort to social distance and stay healthy in the great outdoors. According to the Chicago-based National Marine Manufacturers Assn., boat sales reached a 13-year high in 2020, up 12% from the year before. More than 310,000 power boats were sold in the U.S. last year.

This uptick in sales is also due in part to people working remotely at what used to be their weekend house. Their relocation now can justify the considerable investment boats require.

Mr. Falla splurged on two new vessels for his family: a used cat boat that cost about $15,000 plus an additional $26,000 that Ms. Falla paid for restoration work, and a used 18-foot skiff for $11,000. He also bought a $2,200 mast-and-lines kit for his 1963 boat, his labor not included.

New docks are hard to come by in some waterfront communities. On the Cape, environmental restrictions have capped new construction, although homeowners can restore or replace an existing dock, said Jon Hagenstein, partner in Beacon Marine Construction in Mashpee, Mass. He already has registered his 4-month-old twins, Wyatt and Mila, for dock permits they may get 20 years from now.

Other areas experiencing a lack of inventory include parts of Maine, the Florida Keys and the nearly 700 miles of shoreline in Talbot County, Md., where homes on the market tend to sell quickly.

Maine broker Heather Shields, senior vice president of Legacy Properties, Sotheby’s International Real Estate, calls the inventory situation “challenging.”

She sold a 5,100-square-foot, four-bedroom, 3½-bath house in Cape Elizabeth for $1 million via FaceTime weeks ago, and the buyer still hasn’t seen it. Her latest top listing is a five-bedroom, four-bath, 4,679-square-foot house on Sebago Lake in Standish, priced at $3.5 million. It has a dock, a stone bulkhead and a sandy beach on 150 feet of lakefront.

In Maryland, Cliff Meredith, owner and partner of Meredith Fine Properties in Easton, says his business has tripled this year over the 2020 period.

“The draw for this area is that it is within driving range of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and D.C.,” said Mr. Meredith, who estimates about 90% of his sales are waterfront properties. “Everyone is fearful of getting on a plane, so the safest thing to do is get in a car with your own family.”

Just after Covid struck, he sold a $2.8 million, 5,251-square-foot, four-bedroom, 5½-bath home in Oxford with 1,700 feet of shoreline, a small sandy beach and broad water views. It also has a dock and a boat lift.

The buyers are Karl Williams, 58, the COO of a Virginia tech company, and his wife, Amy, 50. They will share the home—90 minutes from the family home in Arlington, Va.—with their three children: sons Phillip, 16, and Christian, 19, and a daughter, Katarina, 26. The sudden death last year of a third son, Ethan, 22, after a brief illness, was the catalyst behind the purchase. “We always knew we would get a second home that would be a magnet for our family and friends,” Mr. Williams said. “The time was right for us and it was a great decision.”

The dock now holds his first boat: a white, 27-foot Boston Whaler. He declined to give the price but said he negotiated a 25% reduction right before the dealership closed on Christmas Eve. He is learning how to operate it via an online course.

“I’m an Army guy,” said the 1985 West Point graduate. “I didn’t go to Annapolis.”

In the Florida Keys, any house design takes a back seat to its location on the water and its boat setup, according to Brett Newman, of the Newman Team, Coldwell Banker Schmitt Real Estate in Islamorada.

“You don’t even go into the homes, you just go to the back and check out the dock,” he said. “If it’s in disrepair or the water is too shallow or if the canal isn’t clean enough for the bait fish to survive in a bait pen, it won’t work out.”

He recently sold a 3,382-square-foot, four-bedroom, three-bath house in Venetian Shores for $1.95 million to Joe Giardino, 62, owner of Adirondack Kayak Warehouse, a kayak retailer in Amsterdam, N.Y.

Not only is the house on Giardino Drive (his last name), but it has the sea wall of Mr. Giardino’s dreams.

He didn’t like the actual house. It had a 1975 design and a blue mansard roof. He replaced the roof, redid the stucco exterior and put hurricane glass in some 37 windows, at a cost of $125,000. He describes the new look as Florida Coastal Modern.

Mr. Giardino closed on July 2, one day after selling his 3,576-square-foot, five-bedroom home in the same community for $1.975 million.

The new house has a boat lift for his $150,000 Seahunt GF, and a 350-by-7-foot dock that likely cost the former owner $350,000 to install, Mr. Newman, the broker, estimated. Mr. Giardino had bought his first house in the Keys in 2004, but has had his eye on this new one for at least a decade. “The stars finally aligned and I was able to get it,” he said.